No multipolarity – the US is still the world’s only superpower
Farrell and Newman 3/7 [Henry J. Farrell, Abraham L. Newman; Henry Farrell is the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute Professor of International Affairs at SAIS, 2019 winner of the Friedrich Schiedel Prize for Politics and Technology, and Editor in Chief of the Monkey Cage blog at the Washington Post. Abraham L. Newman is an American political scientist and professor in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and Government Department at Georgetown University and Director of the Mortara Center for International Studies.; 3-17-22; "US is the only sanctions superpower. It must use that power wisely”; https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/us-is-the-only-sanctions-superpower-it-must-use-that-power-wisely/articleshow/90285787.cms?from=mdr; The Economic Times; accessed 7-7-2022; AH]
For years, many believed that a world of global economic networks and interdependence — countries intimately connected via supply chains and finances — made war obsolete. That is part of the reason Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was so shocking. But the international economy itself has turned into a battlefield. The conventional war in Ukraine has unleashed a swift and staggering economic conflict, led by the United States and its allies against Russia. And that war is being waged with new weapons, forged in the post-Cold War age of global networks. As much as we talk about multipolar politics, when it comes to global networks, there is just one superpower: the United States. Many global networks have centralized economic chokepoints, and the United States is able to seize these, turning them into tools of coercion. No other country can match this ability. America can now redeploy global networks to entangle and suffocate oligarchs, banks and even entire countries, as Russia has painfully discovered. It is now up to the United States to determine how to steward this enormous power. If it overreaches, it might provoke a military response or create the incentive for its adversaries to create and foster their own alternative networks. The Ukraine war may be a turning point. Will we end up with a fragmented world economy where military and economic conflict become two sides of the same coin? Or will we figure out ways to contain economic conflicts and stop them from spiraling into further military confrontations?